Business Simulation with Professional Development

Learning outcome 1: Knowledge
Explain the theory and practice of businesses
Describe a range of current problems and changes that organizations face in being successful

Thinking skills
Critically evaluate research and theory to support decision-making and explain progress
Analyse complex issues, make reasoned judgments with incomplete data, and communicate conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences

Subject-based practical skills
Students will discuss good practice for organization success
Undertake a critical audit of skills and capabilities for a professional career and identify areas required for improvement

Skills for life and work (general skills)
Developing and communicating critical evaluations of organization progress
Working effectively in teams

Assignment overview

The individual assignment - to be submitted as one report - is comprised of two parts: A and B. Part A is the simulation evaluation. This focuses on evaluating your company in the simulation. Part B is the professional development reflection. This focuses on evaluating your individual performance in working with other students in your team in the simulation.

Part A: Individual Simulation Evaluation (Business Simulation)
Weighting - half of the total weighting (50%) Word Count - ca. 3000

You have been managing your virtual company in the business simulation activity for eight quarters (two quarters weekly). You are now reviewing and presenting your future plans for the company based on your annual business plans (for each simulation week) and performance in the simulation. You are required to evaluate the success of your decisions and make recommendations for future company plans.

1. Executive Summary
Remember this is an overview of: the most important decisions you made; the actual results you got; the most important decisions you have made about your
future strategy

2. Describe the simulation company Vision and Strategy over the simulation
e.g. vision, values, mission, HR
This section is to be based on your Team business plan. Please use your own words to describe your company's Vision and Strategy (do not ‘copy and
paste' your group business plan)

3. What you did
Performance review: competition analysis (Market choice/share; competitors; internal capabilities). Also talk about the most important decisions you made and the targets you set quarterly over a
selected period of time.

4. What the outcome was
Explain simulation performance results quarterly over a selected period of time taking into account: Position, KPIs, Financial performance

Performance review: Performance analysis: analyse performance (evaluate decisions taken in each area
- Strategy/ Marketing / HR/ Logistics / Finance / Product development / Responses to World events etc linking to simulation results)
Marks will be awarded for how well you explain the connection between the decisions you made and the results you achieved (regardless of
whether the outcome of your decisions were positive or negative in a business sense)

5. Future Company Strategy
Develop future company plans and recommendations including:
Define key decisions for a selected period of time
Identify any changes to current strategy and how to achieve those changes
Set out recommendations - based on your review of company performance,
Explain areas for potential growth

Additional Criteria
Structure and writing (Grammar, argument, clarity, use of business theory to support arguments)

Further details:

Performance review:
Assess the success of the strategy or strategies compared to industry conditions and competitors in the simulation
Analyse company performance e.g. comparing actual performance with targets in your Business Plan, financial data analysis, decision analysis and justification of performance measures and strategy, application of business scorecard etc

Performance analysis further details:
Explain why business plan achieved/ missed, why performance changed
Explain differences from competitors/ industry (in simulation)
Explain any changes made to business plan and company, why, any impact

Part B: Individual Reflective Report (Professional Development)
Weighting - half of the total weighting (50%) Word Count - 3000

Your annual Performance Development Review is approaching. You are keen to reflect on how working in this team compares to what you have learnt on your MBA course and your understanding of how companies perform. You are required to prepare a report that covers research into one or two events from your simulation team looking at group dynamics, how decisions were made, leadership analysis, and implications for your individual professional development.

This should cover:
Report summary
Introduction and Identified events
Application of theory and practice to identified events
Use theory to make sense of the two events - what happened, how, why
Brief review of applied theories / concepts/ industry practices - how relevant and valid are they to your events

Discussion and recommendations
Review and explain your individual professional development
Recommendations to improve your practice and areas for you to research to improve your development
Structure and writing (Grammar, argument, report summary)
Appendix (incl. individual reflection logs for each quarter selected for the purpose of the simulation evaluation)

An example of an identified event (not to be used in your assessment):
Your team is virtual and has had mixed performance throughout the simulation activity. It feels like it has been a very iterative process in getting people and building the team. Communication has been hard with individuals having different levels of access to technology (i.e. intermittent internet, using mobile phones instead of computers), and some members have engaged little with other team members. This has meant redistributing work and recognising what each member is likely to complete.

You have been asked to prepare a coursework comprised of two parts - Part A: Simulation Evaluation and Part B: Reflection.

As a student, you will be taught how to write correctly referenced essays using UEL's standard Harvard referencing system from Cite Them Right. Cite Them Right is the standard Harvard referencing style at UEL for all Schools apart from the School of Psychology which uses the APA system.

Business Simulation

Reflective Log Preparation
Instructions
Use this to record your reflections about your behaviour and performance. Keep each week to include in your professional development reflection report submission as an Appendix.

Task
Evaluate your professional development this week, recording activities and impact this will have on the development of your group and your career.

Please note that you can use Adobe Reader DC to write your answer here and to annotate the business plan.

Reflective Log Guidelines
Your reflective log is used to capture your experiences on your learning journey in the business simulation group work. This should be concise - use bullet points, diagrams and tables. Your reflections should inform how you act in your group and provide points for reflection in developing your professional development assessment. The aim is to organise your reflective log under the following aspects.
Events
Describe what has happened in your simulation group this week. Cover what decisions have been made, what is happening as you make decisions, is it going as planned, how are you dealing with any challenges, what can you do differently and what are you learning.

Group dynamics
Include reflections about you and your group members. This is likely to change over time as you face different challenges or change who takes different roles. Take care to consider how your group is developing (linear vs cyclical vs non-sequential), whether there was evidence of groupthink (conformity without questioning) or any dilemmas e.g. working for individual or collective interests (e.g. marketing vs finance).

Leadership
Record activities that contribute towards leadership in your group for each week. This should cover differences between management and leadership, leader traits, skills, behaviour and activities, their influence on what happens and whether it was effective for your organisation. Note, this will not all be about the CEO, each individual can lead on different topics, and this may cause conflict and tension linking to your group dynamics.

Culture
Describe the shared assumptions and values of your group in the business simulation this week. Cover the activities you have done together, which of you were highly valued by the group (and for which characteristics), and whether there are any symbols of your culture being developed. Have they changed from last week? And consider if they align with those of your organisation in the business simulation.

Industry practices
Record your insights from reading about what is happening/ has happened in the mobile phone industry. This should draw on the specific readings where academics discuss a mobile phone company in terms of one aspect of its activities (e.g. strategy) and your wider reading about how the mobile phone industry has developed. Record how your understanding of your group dynamics, leadership and culture can translate to working in the industry.

Supporting analysis
Record all the information that you collect from the simulation and any real life phone companies to reflect on your professional development. This should cover:
HR theory
Group dynamics theory
Leadership theory
Organisational culture theory
Articles in the media on HR, teams, leadership, culture of mobile phone companies.